JACK COWAN: With all that's going on, can Tiger still sink a putt?

SAN ANGELO, Texas - The most surprising part about Tiger Woods’ incredible tale isn’t that he broke his marriage vows.

After all, a lot of people do that. And while I have no data to back it up, my guess is that professional golfers — who are often rich, attractive, celebrities of varying status and on the road nine months a year — stray more than most.

No, what was stunning was that he did it so badly. Woods isn’t merely better at his profession than anyone who ever lived. Beyond that, he seems to have programmed himself toward that goal.

Woods is methodical, dedicated, disciplined, so calculating that he gives the impression he’s always thinking seven steps ahead. What little we saw of his personal life seemed similarly controlled, as if he were driving toward perfection in every aspect of his life.

So you’d think that if he were going to fool around, he’d do that expertly as well — that is, pick someone he knew would be discreet and then carouse in a way that he could feel confident he wouldn’t be detected. Golf analogies seem inadequate, and potentially perilous, but it’s probably safe to say Woods played down the wrong fairway and landed in a hazard.

Not only did he pick the wrong partner, apparently he had multiple playmates, and one of them turned out to be the kind who would kick her ball out from behind a tree when no one was looking and mark down a five instead of a seven. That would be the cocktail waitress who saved the phone message heard around the world.

The question, of course, is what the heck was Woods thinking when he left that message, and reportedly a few hundred text messages? Any 20-handicapper would know better than to do that.

Woods also exposed a shocking level of naiveté in asking that his situation remain private and apparently thinking that might actually happen. The most recognized sports figure in the world wrecks his car a few yards from his home at 2:30 in the morning, with cryptic reports of his wife breaking out his rear windshield with a golf club, and no one is going to wonder what happened?

If he played golf like he handled his flings and their fallout, Woods couldn’t win the Muleshoe Country Club championship.

All the attention is on the scandal, but I’m more interested in what will become of his career.

Tiger has 14 major championships, four behind Jack Nicklaus. His 71 PGA Tour victories ranks him third, two behind Nicklaus and 11 back of Sam Snead. He turns 34 this month, not old for a golfer — he’s in his prime, really — but it won’t be many years before he’s no longer the automatic favorite every time he tees up.

Presumably the worst of the public humiliation will abate sometime next year, but not soon. Imagine the circus that will ensue the first time Woods plays in a tournament. (The PGA might pretend to be aghast over the whole sordid mess, but the TV ratings for that event will be freakishly high.) If he can win in that environment, any doubts about whether he’s the greatest ought to vanish forever.

But can he? Woods is renowned for being able to focus exclusively on the next shot no matter what’s going on around him, but he’s never had this kind of test before.

He’s fortunate that the first major of the year is the Masters, where the staid, rich men in Augusta, Ga., enforce rules of decorum with the ferocity of actual tigers and will eject — or maybe publicly flog — anyone who utters the words “affair,” “broken rear windshield” or “cocktail waitress,” much less the more salacious taunts Woods will hear elsewhere. (What was it, about 10 minutes before someone cracked that his new nickname is “Cheetah”?)

In addition to the fallout from the scandal, his marriage probably will still be in tatters, or worse. Can he win majors with all that going on in his personal life? Even for Woods, that’s hard enough when things are going well.

It would be a shame if Woods’ chance to stamp himself among the greatest athletes were undone by bad judgment and tacky behavior.